True Strength
by Salma-sol
Summary: Oneshot. It takes real courage to face your troubles head on. It takes honest work to make your peace with the world. As one noble girl contemplates suicide, the undeniable inner strengh it takes to live a noble lady's life is revealed.


**True Strength**

She sits on her bed and looks at her wrists. What is to be done? Can anything be done?

Nothing has changed.

She isn't a person.

She never was. Nobody ever let her be. Maybe some ladies could be happy like this.

Maybe some ladies never noticed. Maybe they didn't care.

But she saw. As she looked out of her haunted eyes, she saw the world in perfect detail. Seeing things others passed over. Looking _through_ things others thought of as opaque. And the world didn't meet her standards.

No, she didn't see the starving children, the men killed in war, the destruction left behind by bandits. She was a Lady. These things were never shown to her, not part of her life. But what she did see was judgment.

At the convent she was known as "student" or "milady"

At home she was "daughter" or "sister"

Here she was "Madame" or "Rosewood" (her fief is rosewood)

It was finally getting to her. She had a name. Could people not use it? Could they not distinguish between her and the person sitting at her side?

Yes, she had friends. But to them she was "hey you" or "rosewood" or just "Miss"

Did nobody else notice that every single thing people called each other could refer to others? Calling a person by their title or their fief held no meaning for her. She felt invisible.

Nobody ever thought of her in particular. Just as part of a larger group. She was a noble, a possible marriage, a lady, a member of her circle, a daughter, a sister.

Not a person.

Most times she could ignore this nagging feeling in the back of her head. Most times she could say, how lucky I am, to be known as so many things, to be part of so many groups.

But not when she was alone, not when she was tired. Not when her friends began to leave court to go home to their lords and have children. Not when the man courting her didn't recognize her when she changed where she sat to ear. Not when she was still and thought, before she went to bed each night.

And so, she looked at her wrists. Regarded them, and saw through them. Looked into the blood flowing in her veins, what a beautiful color it was, how she longed to see it. Spilling, welling up from its hiding place inside her. How she longed to feel that release.

The besieged girl, beaten, lay back, flopping into her bed. She was so tired. So tired of this life, this world that would not differentiate between herself and others.

She closed her eyes briefly, before sighing, and standing up. She began to rummage in her desk drawer. There was a letter opener, the sharp, cold metal comforting in her hand. But she put it aside, and continued to dig. Underneath, there was paper, and quills. She took out these. And she wrote: "I am Cameo." And she put the paper in the bottom drawer of her desk. And she went to bed.

And if someone were to look in that bottom desk drawer, they would find it filled with parchment, each and every piece with that single line of writing. And below the swiftly increasing pile, was a razor sharp knife.

!O!O!O!

**A/N:** there. I was thinking about all those convent fics out there, you know, they either hate the convent or love it, and then go to court and find a husband/to avoid finding a husband, but fall in love either way, Etc etc. I dunno, this idea just sort of floated in while I was reading one of those, how the characters were always being called milady. So this story is dedicated to whoever it was that wrote that story, sorry, but I can't remember, it's wasn't outstanding, honestly.

Thank you to **music nerd** and **Howgal** for reviewing my first version of this story. I really appreciated it. But it just wasn't right, and had to be taken down for repairs.

Review or don't, I don't care this time, because I like my story, and am secure in it if you hate it or not.

But if you do choose to review (**_pretty please!_**) would you mind telling me…

How haunting/not haunting this was  
If you thought she was going to kill herself  
How understandable it was  
If you could relate to the character  
How clear it was  
Your Thoughts In General 

Thanks!


End file.
